Group seeking minimum wage increase given more time to collect signatures

Supporters of a plan to gradually raise Arkansas' minimum wage have been given 30 more days to circulate petitions and collect signatures after falling shy of the signatures needed to put their proposal on the November ballot.

Secretary of State Mark Martin's office on Friday told the Give Arkansas a Raise Now campaign that it had fallen short of the 62,507 signatures from registered voters needed to qualify the proposed initiated act for the November ballot. Martin's office said that more than 3,000 of the 64,135 signatures submitted by the group had been tossed out.

The proposal would raise Arkansas' minimum wage from $6.25 an hour to $8.50 an hour by 2017.